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As of this writing, three readers have written in to complain about my article today discussing four recent polls that together reveal significant discontent among voters. That’s not a groundswell, but LiveScience exists for it readers, so I take the concerns seriously. Excerpts of the complaints:
Dan: I am extraordinarily disappointed to see the blatantly political article “Americans are mad as..” on LiveScience.com. The only purpose of the article, as far I can discern, seems to be to demonstrate your editor’s own political biases.
Walter: I keep looking at the LiveScience header to see if a new category has been added labeled “Politics” or “Opinion”…I don’t see one. Please stick to what you do best (I love the website), i.e.,SCIENCE.
Gibbons: LiveScience.com is a great science site. Please don’t pollute it with politics.
I can see how the article generated this concern. We have not heretofore covered politics extensively. We do report on polls, and you’ll find many in our archives. And we do report on politics when there is some interesting science (including polls) that provides insight we find compelling. While polling is imprecise, good ones are done scientifically and often offer the best and only way to find out what segments of the population are thinking.
All realms of science are imprecise at times and to varying degrees, and researchers frequently speculate on what their findings mean. We try to point out fact vs. speculation in our stories. Ultimately, politics and science can’t be artificially separated as some would like. Politicians make decisions that affect how science is done, how much money goes to research, and how businesses and individuals affect the environment. Some of the discontent right now that shows up in the polls is related to high gas prices, an issue that has many scientific and technological aspects.
In this case, I didn’t report on a single poll, but rather found four that together indicate a pretty strong sentiment out there. Regardless of my political views, I find that interesting and thought many of our readers would, too.
All that said, trust that LiveScience will continue to focus on new discoveries and fascinating scientific endeavors. That will always be our main mission. And keep the emails coming. There is no better way to contribute to LiveScience’s continued improvement than by telling us what you love and what you don’t.
April 27th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
The politics is there, it shows up clearly in both subject choice and word choice, and yet — probably — it’s as invisible to you guys at the top as the water is to the fish it swims in.
Way back early I asked to examine one sample of subconscious bias, when the meme about the Pentagon’s “hundred dollar toilet seat” (more commonly, “eight hundred dollar toilet seat”), as an example of what I suggested was a reflexive manipulation of bogus symbols to continuously buttress up our own world views [my intended point -- the story is a myth, developed and promulgated to deceive rather than clarify].
We struggle against these ’short cuts’ continuously, with stock phrases such as “record high oil prices” [still significantly lower than in the late 1970's -- IF inflation is considered], “undocumented workers” [as if the fault were in the people who ought to be doing the 'documenting'], “domestic spying”, even “anti-war” [as if the end of the Vietnam War brought peace, instead of mass slaughter, to SE Asia]. The phrases carry such a heavy semantic burden that people who want to communicate rather than confront ought to make efforts to steer clear of them — as I said, an endless and frustrating effort. BUT the only way out of hopeless confusion.
Since we are here discussing subjects that have even more nebulous denotations, and concepts that are new to our civilization, the dangers of miscommunicating are even higher. Being aware of the problem is the first step towards making allowances, making progress, and achieving something worthwhile. This forum offers that opportunity.
Now, about those “eight hundred dollar toilet seats”…. (grin)
April 27th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Jimeo makes a good point. I also think that the article had a light scent of bias. You were SUBTLY giving away your bias, Mr. Britt - it was subtle - not overt, like much of the media bias that exists today. Kudos for that.
A news anchor can state that one politician is “living up to their promises to the voters” by doing such and such, but the other politician is “bowing to pressure from their campaign contributors”.
For instance, I have not yet stated any political opinions whatsoever, but I bet anyone reading this has already made assumptions about my political leanings, and those of jimeo.
A more scientific look at those same polls would ask why the polls are showing the specific trend. You said:
“While polling is imprecise, good ones are done scientifically and often offer the best and only way to find out what segments of the population are thinking.”
But your article offered no inquiry into whether the polls you were looking at were “good ones”, or not.
Nuf’ said yall.
April 28th, 2006 at 5:41 am
Nice try, boys, but Rob’s round-up of the polls out there spell out a larger problem that has nothing to do with his politics: There are simply a lot of polls out there hanging the president, his administration and congress out to dry. Rob could have chosen polls about gas and oil prices, and while there are not as many out there, those surveys (eg: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/04/24/rel11a.pdf) reflect a disatisfaction with the how the ruling party has handled the issue. If you don’t like the bad news, don’t shoot the messenger (like poor Scott Mclellan), take aim at the policy makers.
April 28th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Nice try, Anthony, but polls, like elections, reflect realities of both options and stories presented to the public.
Example: the concept that Palestinian and Iranian leadership reflects “free elections” (yeah, with the addition that ‘unapproved’ candidates were eliminated, on paper or in the flesh, prior to voting).
Example: the public perceptions of Administration ‘honesty’ after years of drumbeats about a mythical ‘punitive outing of a CIA covert agent’, when the facts — generally not made available to the public — indicate that it was the Prez, not the press, that told the truth about Iraqi interests in Mali, that the CIA employment of Plame (who drove to work through the front gate in Langley, and was openly assigned to foreign US embassies — hence, could NOT have been ‘covert’) was relevant to allegations of who sent her husband to Mali, and that it was as preposterous as it really looks for some supposedly evil minion in the White House to ‘get even’ with a guy through a useless gambit (’outing’? — oh, ouch, how much has that really hurt anybody?) instead of REALLY using the abuse-power of the government (recent-past reminder — release of Pentagon personnel records of citizens who displeased Clinton).
So of course the general public will respond to such programming. And then touting the artificial response is ‘closing the circle’ of false cause and false effect.
But we’re not going to do that here.
April 28th, 2006 at 7:10 am
That is a terrible example and some what overreaching as it has nothing to do with the point that Rob was attempting to make. Your dissatisfaction with the polling numbers is not the point. The point is that across a broad spectrum of voters the policies currently in place are not satisfactory. Whether Iran or Palestine are democracies is irrelavant as it could be argued that the our own Electoral College undermines the whole “one person/one vote” form of democracy that we’re trying to export. As for Valerie Plame, any questions about that go to a much larger inquiry than whether she was “outed” or not, specifically it goes to the ever-changing and nebulous definition of “presidential power”. Still as an exercise in how the memetic power of the Administration’s spin policy is working, your above posting is pretty remarkable and should itself be studied. But, as you say, that’s not going to happen here …
April 28th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
And you still think the “$800 Pentagon toilet seat” is a true story of gummint waste? I brought it up because it was brought up by somebody else, and, actually, it is based on a genuine aerospace technology and budgetary theme.
I raise relevant specifics, and all I seem to get back is hand-waving about stuff like “presidential power”, and a thinly-veiled suggestion that I’m the victim of the Administration’s ’spin policy’. Once again, counter-arguments turn personal. Let’s focus on engineering and scientific themes that can be thrashed out, that can be argued with cited sources as well as out own expertise and experience, that can move towards resolution rather than confrontation.
Has anybody changed any tiny bit of their minds so far? We can do better.
April 28th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
OK, this last posting is ironic since this thread began with personal attacks against Rob Britt, alleging biases in the writing of his story and once again it goes directly off point in an effort to deflect criticism from the alleged feeble arguments hoisted in the previous postings. As for the toilet seat, that and other quasi-urban myths related to government wastefulness are deserving of their own study, but have nothing to do with the overview of the polls that Mr. Britt posted. There was nothing relevant to your specifics and they were merely attempts at obfuscation in an attempt to bring it all back to the “science”; an attempt at taking some kind of moral highground. Next.
April 29th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Political science is science. I’m an engineer, and my girlfriend is a political scientist and we’ve had many discussions about whether political science is science or not. I’d have to say that she has a real point when she claims it’s science, because political science is a study of the affairs of governments and state, and the methods of governing. Political policies are also affected by sociology, because social reactions come into play.
April 29th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
I’ve appreciated your science expertise and reporting for years. Keep that up and stay away from politics, PLEASE.
You know, everyone has a political bias, built upon all sorts of experiences, values, and history, and no matter how much you try to keep yours out, you won’t, and even if you could, the readers will read and impugn one into what you write, and your blog will soon become as embroiled in the partisanship as the rest of our culture, and the blogosphere - which already has its millions of political bloggers and many more millions of readers. The value of your science writing will be diminished and lost in the mire of the political biases and prejudices and passions of your readers. Even a poll on science issues will become a slippery slope lubricated by Bush-hating or loving, party loyalties, pro- and anti-war, the culture warsd, etc. etc., and what you have to contribute will be poisoned by that pill!
May 4th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
“And you still think the “$800 Pentagon toilet seat” is a true story”
Yes, it’s a true story, except you have your facts wrong. It was a $600 toilet seat, and it was exposed by Sen. Charles Grassley in a Pentagon audit in 1983.
May 5th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
As a Canadian I think of myself as nonpartisan with regard to US politics. As an impartial judge I would have to come down strongly on this article as political; there is simply no doubting it as an impartial outside observer. Mr. Britt, unfortunately you’ve lost a lot of credibility regarding your impartiality since when one allows there political views to perturb them so much as to have to write about them in their work world, it brings into question how they may be coloring your reporting in other areas that require ethical perspectives.